And so to the second post of 2009, and I'm on call 'till tomorrow morning so I'll keep it brief.

One of the myriad resolutions I want to keep this year is to get fit and trim - I am furiously envious of my little sister who has had the audacity to get down to a size 10, the smallest and trimmest she has been in over 20 years... She's in love (which might have something to do with her fabulous new figure) but I think mebbe it's more to do with the mountain biking she's been participating in religiously, at least every Sunday.

Soooo, I've dusted off the old running shoes, and I'm eyeing me old bicycle (a hybrid with a verrrry painful saddle!) in the shed with trepidation.

With this new, trim, fit 'me' in mind, I went back to hashing last Tuesday - walk, run, walk, get hopelessly lost, find way again and arrive FIRST back to the pub because I missed the regroup(now THAT'S more like it!) - in the 'words'* I read the following:

Answers to last week's riddles:

1. Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe and close the door.

This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door.

This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3.Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the dorr.

This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions. (sic)

4. The elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory.

Now, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

worldwide, around 90% of professionals they tested got all the answers wrong, but many pre-schoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four year old.

Now I found the above all the more interesting because I didn't go hashing the previous week, and I boggled trying to think up the questions. I've since seen them (try googling 'giraffe, elephant and refrigerator' and it'll come up) and my guesses were far more fun. The repetition for answers 2 and 3 were mistakes. The repetition for answers 2 and 3 were mistakes.

The hasher who scribed them was, with no doubt at all, under the influence of something whacky.

*The 'words' are the single sheet of diary (a usually fictitious account of the previous week's hash by a reluctant scribe who agreed to write it up whilst under the influence) and events listing that Ashburton Hash House Harriers distribute every week.